B.Nektar - Dark Dark Goose

What a cool, fantastic mead from B.Nektar.  Dark Dark Goose is a coffee mead aged in bourbon barrels, then aged a second time in a Goose Island's Bourbon County Stout barrel.  

There's a pretty interesting story behind this mead:  The inspiration was the big stouts that B.Nektar loved to drink, so a coffee mead was made with the help of a local Ferndale, MI roaster, Chazzano in 2010.  The blend is 75% of a Nicaraguan french roast and 25% of a Yemen full city roast.  The honey profile is 50/50 wildflower and Buckwheat. The coffee mead was then put into a Heaven Hill barrel for 11 months.  Then in 2011 their co-founder Brad drove his car to Chicago to pick up a just emptied Bourbon County Stout barrel from Goose Island, which he then drove back home to Michigan on this roof.  They then aged the coffee mead in this barrel (purportedly still with some BCBS still left in the barrel) until the summer of 2012.

This mead is a limited, one-time release in 375ml bottles.  Released at Summer Mead Fest in the Summer of 2012.  It was originally $25, limit 6 bottles.  The bottle count is estimated at about 500 bottles.

I thoroughly enjoyed this mead.  The intensity of the coffee was mind blowing considering the bottle I drank was 4 years old.  There was no sign of coffee fade or green peppers.  The sweetness of the honey was nicely offset with the spiciness of the buckwheat and oaky/spiciness of the barrel. There was a huge roastiness that was both bitter and smooth at the same time.  This mead is top notch, and I loved the chance to try it.  If you ever come across a bottle don't hesitate to jump on it, it's one of the best coffee meads I've ever had, and drinking fantastically.

Superstition RELEASE - 2nd Anniversary

On October 15th Superstition will celebrate their 2 year anniversary of their Prescott tasting room.  To honor Arizona they will release the Locavore Series.  Which is 3 different melomels in 375ml bottles.  Every one made with local Arizona sourced honey and fruit.

They will be sold only as a set of 3, with only 50 sets being released at $125 per set.  There will be a limit 2 sets per person.

La Granada - Pomegranate mead
Honey Super Highway - Prickly Pear mead
Out of Time - Cyser aged on oak.

No water was used in these meads, just rare Arizona Apple, Prickly Pear, and Pomegranate juice, and of course AZ Honey

Schramm's - Apple

It's that time of year again, fall is upon us.  So while we've already grown sick of pumpkin beers that have been around for the last 2 months, we can thankfully move on to ciders and cysers!

I was surprised to realize this was my first time having Schramm's Apple.  Until this point I have tried nearly every Schramm's offering, limited or not, so I find it interesting that Apple was last on that list outside of something crazy like b1 HoD.

I'm a big fan of a well done cyser, and this is a well done cyser.  It's clean and crisp with a nice balance of sweetness (from the honey and apples) and tartness (from the other apple varieties in the cider).  This mead was smooth and refreshing.  It's an excellent mead, however it was not my favorite cyser I've had. There's nothing wrong, per say, with Apple, but I wasn't in love with it either.  I would give it a solid 8/10 and a must try for any cider, cyser, or fall lover.

Brothers Drake RELEASE 11/20/16

Brothers Drake Meadery's annual release of Bourbon Barrel Apple Pie is Sunday, November 20th at noon EST at their meadery.

Bourbon Barrel Apple Pie is their Apple Pie mead aged in OYO Bourbon barrels.

CLICK FOR MORE DETAILS ON FB

We're on Twitter!

The Mead Spot is now live on Twitter!

Follow @TheMeadSpot to stay up to date will 

the latest mead news and blog posts

Superstition RELEASE 9/24/16

Peanut Butter Jelly Crime is being released on September 24th in their Tasting Room.  This mead is made with Peanuts and Blueberry juice.

This batch is only 18 cases but I've been told another, larger batch will be available in about 6 weeks (early November) which should make it out to their normal distribution in AZ, and possibly online.

Misbeehavin Mead: September Releases

Misbeehavin Meads, out of Valparaiso, Indiana is a fantastic newer meadery that's dedicated to art of crafting unique meads with interesting flavors and ingredients.

Misbeehavin makes tons of small batch experimental stuff, and typically releases 2 or 3 new meads a month.  Misbeehavin Meads has only been open since around May 2016 and the variety of meads up out thus far is impressive.  A wide swath has been painted with flavors and variety in the recent releases.  Here's what to look for with September's release.

The September meads, recently release in bottles on September 15th are as follows:

Pirate Love - A date mead aged in rum barrels (375 mL)

Cactus Blossom - A mead made with cactus blossom honey (750 mL)

Camel Drum - An Orange Blossom honey with orange zest, cinnamon, and saffron (750 mL)

There were also 2, in-house only meads released that are currently available as tap room only drafts.

   Charether Cutestory - a cyser with orange blossom honey, tart cherries, and apple cider

   25 year old Hawaiian Organ Donor - orange blossom honey, pineapple, and hops

Check them out on Facebook at: Misbeehavin' Meads

Garagiste - The Pits

The Pits is a melomel made with peaches, apricots, and nectarines from Garagiste

This mead sounds like a knock-out-of-the-park with the craft beer crowd.  They LOVE stone fruits.  I didn't love this one.  Don't get me wrong, it was a good mead.  There were some solid stone fruit characters, a little nutty, but I didn't get any softness that I look for with peach and apricot beverages.  There was more acidity than I would care for.  I also thought the finish was a bit astringent, I wish it would have finished a sweeter.  The rest of the people I tasted this with loved it, which is great and goes to show you the diversity of tastes.  Overall this is a good mead, and I can see how many would like this, but it was one of my least favorite Garagiste meads to date.  

Schramm's Heather

Schramm's Heather, a traditional mead made with heather honey is an absolutely phenomenal mead.  This mead is extremely sweet in the most delicate and floral way.  It's as close to drinking straight honey as I've ever experienced.  It was truly a treat to try.

Only 30 bottles of Heather was released, in 187mL bottles.  These bottles were released as part of their Raid the Cellar event for their Heart of Darkness fundraiser dinner on July 10th, 2016.

If you ever had the opportunity to try this mead, jump at it without hesitation!

Garagiste's Bangkok

Garagiste Meadery, a new upstart meadery from Florida doesn't have a physical location for their meadery yet, but while Chad is working on getting the physical meadery up and running he's been pumping out small batch meads at a very high rate.  Thus far all of his released meads go to either pouring at festivals or bottles are raffled off to Garagiste's Indigogo investor campaign.  So these bottles tend to be few and far between thus far.  Thankfully I was fortunate enough to try a great number of his meads.

One standout was Bangkok.  Described as follows: Bangkok is part of our destination series of meads.  In Thailand there is an indigenous tea made using butterfly pea blossom flowers call Dok Anchan.  It's visually striking and often a blue or lavender color.  Dok Anchen is typically flavored with honey which made it well suited to mead.  We accented it with ginger and finished it sweet.

The color on this mead was crazy.  Unlike anything I've seen in a mead.  It was this vibrant, almost iridescent purple.  The nose was very floral and tea-like. The taste followed the nose with a very soft, floral taste with lots of green tea and a hint of ginger spiciness.  It does finish a bit sweet but is really an herbal mead.  I loved it, it was unique, fun, and unlike any other mead I've had. 

I'm very much looking forward to more meads like this from Garagiste.  For me, this is what mead making in this currant day and age is all about; taking an extremely class fermented drink and taking it to the next level with new flavor/techniques to create a newly unique drinking experience.

Superstition's Berry White Series

The infamous Berry White series is a collection of 4 meads (Berry White, Straw Berry White, Blue Berry White, and Black Berry White) that are released by Superstition Meadery.  At this point there have only been 2 batches of the series released (one of Straw Berry).

The meads come in ceramic 500mL swing top bottles, all with about a 300 bottle count. Batch 2 was released in Fall 2015 so these meads were about a year old at the time of tasting.  Retail for the set was $375.  They're not cheap.

Given the province, price, and low bottle count these meads are typically highly regarded in the mead community.  Additionally, they're delicious.


I previously tasted the set when they first came out in the Fall of 2015.  At that time I was not impressed by the set.  I thought they were tasty but overly sweet, to the point of cloyingly sweet.  However the second time drinking these, in August 2016 about a year after release, they are truly special meads.  They are still very sweet, but a bit softer and nuanced.  I was particularly fond of Staw Berry White, which was my favorite of the group.  It had this intense jamminess to it, almost like liquefied strawberry jam my grandma and mother make.

Overall all 4 were outstanding meads and I was very lucky to get to try them all again.  They are aging very gracefully and I think feel are worth the time and effort to seek out if you have the means.  It was an extremely enjoyable drinking experience.  If I had to rank my preference it would be as follows: Straw Berry>Blue Berry>Berry>Black Berry, although all 4 were fantastic.  If you're a fan of big, sweet, fruity melomels, these are right up your ally.

Meadapolooza 2016

I recently attending a yearly mead tasting with friends, dubbed Meadapolooza.  This is just a private tasting with a group of friends, between 14-16 depending on year.  But we're all very much into mead and we like to bring out the big guns.  There's more honey water that could possibly be consumed in one night.  Originally on the list we had planned to open 58 bottles of mead and do a honey tasting with 15 different honey varietals.

We ended up getting through all 15 honeys and about 30 or 35 meads, which is impressive for 14 people in a few hours, considering the risks for diabetic shock.

In subsequent posts I'll detail my thoughts on some of the more interesting or themed meads we tasted, but for the time being , here's a kill shot of the majority of the stuff consumed.

RELEASE: Schramm's Apple

It's that time of year again! Fall is upon us, which means cysers and ciders!

Schramm's just announced they bottled Apple Reserve, with release info to follow

There is a new, interesting distinction this year with Apple.  There will be 2 different Apple meads released, Apple and Apple Reserve.

Apple Reserve, as with any meads made with Schramm Family Estate fruit, will not have "Reserve" on the label.

Apple is made from apples from other orchards, but because of the intense labor involved in their Reserve meads they felt like they needed to differentiate the release.

I make my own mead

I've been making my own mead now for over two years now, since mid 2014.  I got into meadmaking for a few reasons.  One being that in 2013 and 2014 I very much enjoyed some great meads like Schramm's Statement Reserve, Heart of Darkness, BlackHeart, etc, which are some of the best liquids I've ever put into my mouth,  Unfortunately they're also very rare and expensive meads, not something you drink every day, or even able to find available often.  That really sparked my interest in home meads.  Aside from these amazing rare liquids, back in 2014 there really wasn't that many commercially available meads out there that I could easily walk into a store and buy.  So I decided to satiate my own thirst for honey water by making my own.

I talk like it was the middle ages, but I'm not shitting you when I say that the mead world has really exploded in the last few years.  The landscape between 2013 and 2016 is night and day.  There's so many more meaderies and resources out there.  In 2014 there really were 2 books on mead making, The Complete Meadmaker (by Ken Schramm) and then recently published The Complete Guide to Making Mead (by Steve Piatz).  There were a few janky blogs and some pretty inactive sub-forums on homebrewing sites, but all in all there really wasn't much information out there on homemade meads.  Thankfully to fill the gaps I also had a tasting group friend who had been making his own meads for quite a while, so I learned as much from him as I could as well.  The rest came from experimenting and experience.

So here I am today with a nice variety of homemade meads and I'm always creating recipes in my head.  The problem is I usually don't have open fermentor space to make batches as often as I would like.  But I have a laundry list of recipes written down just waiting.  There will be plenty more mead made.

B.Nektar RELEASE 9/24/16

RELEASE ANNOUNCEMENT

B.Nektar Bottle Release per their Facebook

When: September 24th, 2016

Where: B.Nektar Meadery

What:  Ancient Soul, Lifetime #1 - A Wildflower Mead, aged for 6+ months in oak barrels.

Bottles limits TBA

Holiday Market/Schramm's Meadery Lord Jim release

ANNOUNCEMENT: MEAD RELEASE

Holiday Market/Schramm's Meadery Lord Jim release.

Per Holiday Market: Royal Oaks MI Facebook:

This was the first barrel purchased by our liquor department, so with the team at Schramm's we came together, after some experimentation, and decided to fill it with Ginger mead.  The barrel was tasted every month until it was found to be perfect.

This is the first in a series of barrel aged projects, 2 more meads and 2 beers are currently in the works for later dates with different suppliers.

We will have 180 bottles to sell, with a 1 bottle per person limit per day (I don' tthink there will be a second day).  The sales will begin this Saturday, September 10, at 10:00am at our store. The price per bottle is $48.99 for 375mL.

As for the line, which I am sure there will be.  We will likely begin outside, weather permitting, so as not to clog the interior of the store.  We will give instructions as needed where to line up.

Welcome

Welcome to The Mead Spot.  The goal of this blog is to open up a window to the world of mead.  If you found this blog you probably already know and love this fermented honey beverage.  I hope you continue to visit because of this blogs content; from latest industry news, releases, openings, events, exciting news from around the mazer community, as well as some personal experiences around tasting and making my own meads.  Enjoy